Silence.
Thick, heavy, unmoving. Not the peace-before-the-sunrise kind. The kind that feels like a scream held in the throat of the universe. He lay there, flat on his back, eyes open, staring at the cracked ceiling like it had something new to offer.
It didn't.
His body didn't hurt. His mind didn't race. It just sat there. Waiting.
And then, like every damn morning for the last few years, it came.
> "Come on, man. You were good yesterday. You even journaled. Five pushups can wait. No one is watching. You deserve to rest."
Soft. Reasonable. Kind, even. The voice always knew how to sound like a friend.
He blinked. Just once.
> "You des—"
He moved.
Hands hit the floor. Body followed.
One.
Two.
Three.
By the time the voice caught up to its own sentence, he was already on the fifth.
No thoughts. No mental debate. No heroic swelling of music in his head. Just a body in motion, slicing through the bullshit like a blade through fog.
He stood up, chest rising and falling. Not with pride. Not with triumph. Just breath.
That was the first cut. And it was deep.
---
The day moved.
So did he.
He ate. Bathed. Dressed. Sat down to study.
And the moment the book opened, the real enemy slithered back in.
> "Chapter 3... Thermodynamics... God, remember that one time she looked at you in chem lab? That smile? Remember how her eyes looked like they had galaxies—"
> "Chapter 3. Chemical Thermodynamics. At constant pressure, a gas expands..."
He read aloud. Not loudly. Not angrily. Just louder than the voice.
> "...doing work on the surroundings, resulting in a decrease in internal energy."
The voice kept going. But now it was background noise. Like a TV in another room. Someone else's problem.
> "You could text her. She'd reply this time. You're different now. Maybe she'll see it."
He turned the page.
> "The first law of thermodynamics relates the change in internal energy to heat added and work done..."
A formula appeared. He wrote it down. Pen scraping paper with purpose.
The voice didn't matter.
For once, it wasn't a fight. It wasn't a debate. It wasn't a courtroom drama inside his skull.
It was a dismissal.
It was irrelevance.
He studied like a soldier marching through enemy territory. Not because he was fearless. But because fear didn't get a vote anymore.
---
Later that evening, he looked at his to-do list. Still long. Still ugly. He didn't win today. But he didn't lose either.
He acted. Again. And again. And again.
He noticed something that chilled him.
The enemy had never been the pushups. Never been the study sessions. Never even been the girl.
It was the escape. The perfect mental escape that dressed itself like motivation. Like hope. Like comfort.
> "Just imagine how you'll feel once you make it. Picture it. Feel it. Live it."
That voice had robbed him of his life.
All these years, he thought he lacked motivation. Discipline. Consistency. No.
He lacked presence.
Because every time he was about to act, the escape offered him a better version of the act. A fantasy. A thrill. A perfect world where he was already the man he wanted to be.
Why take step one, when your brain could show you step hundred with fireworks?
And so he stayed at zero. For years.
Until now.
He picked up his pen again. Not because he wanted to. Because it was time.
> "I'm not here to win arguments in my head. I'm here to do things in the world."
He underlined that in his journal.
Twice.
He looked at his reflection. It didn't look different. Didn't need to.
> "You are not my friend. You're
a siren. A trap. A drug. And I'm done listening."
Silence again.
But this time, it was different.
This silence belonged to him.